VASSAR TWP. — Now that John D. Cooper has pleaded guilty to illegally taking nine white-tailed bucks found hanging inside his pole barn here, Cooper wants the government to return the 22 firearms seized when officers searched his property.

Tuscola County prosecutors, however, don’t plan to give the guns back, and have asked visiting Judge David C. Nicholson to send Cooper to jail when he’s sentenced June 22.

Cooper’s lawyer, Caro attorney Robert A. Betts, asks in a court brief for Nicholson to immediately order the guns returned, or to order them returned if the government can’t establish a connection between the guns and the allegations against Cooper, 45, of 4185 Caine.

Michigan law requires hunters to affix a “kill tag” to a deer immediately after it is killed.

State Department of Natural Resources Conservation Officer Joshua D. Wright said he arrested Cooper after finding the nine untagged bucks and 22 firearms Nov. 19 at Cooper’s address, located in a wooded area several miles outside the city of Vassar.

Betts, however, argues officers seized every firearm or weapon they found at Cooper’s residence without regard for whether the guns were used to kill the nine bucks and without regard to who owned them.

Betts claims the officers seized 21 firearms and one “smooth-bore pellet gun” which he maintains is not a firearm as defined by law.

The nine deer carcasses, meanwhile, have been sent to the Michigan State Police Crime Laboratory in Bridgeport Township for forensic analysis “to try to determine what bullet fragments might be present, which would then subsequently be used for comparison to the guns seized lawfully under the (search) warrant,” according to a court brief filed by Chief Assistant Prosecutor Eric F. Wanink.

Analysis of the deer carcasses “is not completed yet due to the limited resources of the crime laboratory and the Michigan State Police,” Wanink stated.

Betts alleged the government “has taken the approach that all the seized firearms/weapons are subject to forfeiture without need to connect them to the alleged criminal activity.”

Betts stated that “If only one or two bullet fragments have been submitted for analysis then it will be impossible for the government to establish a nexus between any or all of the 22 firearms/weapons and their use in taking the untagged deer.”

Nicholson is scheduled to sentence Cooper on June 22 at 1 p.m., and then decide whether to order the return of the firearms at a separate hearing at 1:30 p.m. that day.

Prosecutors have asked the judge to require Cooper to pay $9,000 in restitution for the nine deer found without kill tags on them. State law provides for restitution of $1,000 for every deer illegally taken by a culprit.

Wanink stated he wants Cooper jailed “because of (his) callous disregard for the rules and laws that regulate the taking of wildlife in this state.” Prosecutors haven’t stated how long they want Cooper placed in jail, though he faces up to 90 days in jail for his guilty plea to the nine misdemeanor charges.